The light of day revealed a devastating change. His face had turned as pale as the linen, his mouth agape, his eyes staring straight above him, without the slightest flicker at her entrance.
“Marcel.” She hastily set the tray on the side table and rushed to his side, pleading, “God have mercy,” as she made the sign of the cross.
His body responded in three shallow, quick breaths. “I’m not going to ask for his mercy, you know.”
“Shh. Don’t talk like that. Not now, not when—”
“When I’m dying?”
“We’ve both much to be forgiven.”
His head lolled to the side, finding her face. “If you forgive me, and Gagnon, and Renée. And even Anne, who cared nothing for any of this until I took her—” He looked away again. “Your forgiveness will bring me peace. All the peace I need for this world. This life.”
Laurette took his hand and brought it to her lips, finding hope along with the bit of warmth in it. “But this isn’t our only life, dear friend. There is another, after. Where all is peace. But you must seek God’s forgiveness.” She thought of everything Gagnon would say, bringing out words buried so deep, they must be truth. “Only ask, and God will usher you into heaven.”
“I know the heaven of this world, Laurette. Here. This house, this home. All those moments I could claim this roof as my own. In the winter, cold, hungry, unwelcome.” He said this with a hint of a smile that assured his spirit remained intact. “Watching you by the fire. Beautiful and content. I thought I might give something like this to you someday, when a man could be prosperous without land. When I could be his equal.”
“You can leave this life his equal. My friend, my love. Only pray.” Though her words were little more than tear-choked whispers, she felt the same as if she called them out across an ocean, or across the violence of the Paris streets. She both held him and called to him, a desperate beckoning. In other times, at other bedsides, she knew to call a priest. Even her own mother, drowning in the blood drawn by her father’s hand, used her final breath to give confession. But there was no priest. There was no church. Only Laurette, on her knees, waiting to hear.
“Laurette.” Such a soft sound.
“Oui, Marcel.”
“Will Gagnon bury me here? On his land? So I can be near—”
“Of course, of course he will. You always have a place.”
“There is a prayer—I used to hear you and Renée, nights when I stole . . .”
“God of heaven,” she began, as if for the first time, “see him now . . .” But before she could speak of the stars and the moon and the darkest clouds, Marcel breathed his last.
L’épisode 32
Renée
* * *
PARIS
* * *
It begins with a pounding on my cell door—a useless act, given I’ve no right to grant or refuse access to the self-proclaimed official on the other side. His manner of dress is only slightly elevated from the rough clothing worn by my guards, and nowhere near as elegant as the suit worn by Marcel.
“Renée Brodeur, you have been charged with acts of high treason against l’Assemblée nationale in your efforts to assist in the unlawful emigration of Louis XVI, former and disgraced sovereign of France; his wife, Marie Antoinette of Austria; their children; and the former princess Elisabeth. For your crimes, you have earned a sentence of death by la guillotine, with a date set for tomorrow, 29 November 1793, at the first possible hour of the day. Make peace with God if you wish.”
No further opportunities to plead my case, to ask for mercy, to beg just one more day. The final words ring in my ear long after the door has slammed shut, key turned, silence descended. No offer of a priest, only permission to pray.
But I need no permission. Do I not pray to my heavenly Father every night? The same prayer since my childhood, for a peaceful sleep and a new day’s awakening? I’ve never shared that prayer—more precious to me than any other—with a priest. Only God could provide solace on nights when I lie restless with fear, and only God could grant me strength to meet each day. And here I know I have only one more chance to hold his promises. One more night. One more day. What priest could grant me more?
Four days, Marcel had promised me. Tomorrow’s dawn would be the third in the promise, and the final in my life. Unless, by some miracle, he is here before the sunrise, I will not see Gagnon again. Nor Laurette—and all by my choosing. Light is fading when I pull Marcel’s well-crafted confession from its place beneath my mattress. I read it again, and again, for the hundredth time since it fell into my hands. It has been folded and refolded, its edges worn, the creases soft. The neat, scrolling hand, the lies that could buy my life. Renouncing what I love, blackening my truth. Words written in the blood of a mother, a father, and a golden-haired innocent boy.
I take my stub of a candle, climb upon my chair, and thrust it through the barred window, asking for a light.
“Don’t tell me you’re scared of the dark, little one.” It’s the detestable Albert, and I know my turn of events is a result of his betrayal. “Might want to get used to it. It’ll be darkness for you forever come morning.”
I say nothing, only repeat my request. He obliges, for no other reason than perhaps a smidge of kindness. Or, less likely, a repayment for the pears he took from me after Marcel left. I’ve not taken a bite of anything since then.
After thanking him for the tiny flame returned to me, I return to my wobbly table and plant the taper on the spiked dish.
I fold the confession, hiding the words within. My resurrection, Marcel had called it. Each letter a plea for mercy, a chance for a new life. What if I’d listened? What if I had put my hand in his, saying, “Marcel! Yes! Merci à Dieu, take me before the judge. I will sign! I will say it all; just grant me life to return home. To Laurette! To Gagnon!”
Perhaps—it is not too late. I can spend the night memorizing the words. Why do I need Marcel to convey them? I’ll speak them through the night until they sound like the product of my soul. I’ll say them to whatever citizen officer, citizen guard, citizen executioner will hear them. They will be the prayer for my life. They will be my hope. My restoration.
And then, as clear as if he were in the room with me, I hear Gagnon’s voice.
“Why would you put your faith in Marcel Moreau, of all people, when your very life is in the hands of God?”
So clear and true is the voice, I turn and look, certain to see his familiar silhouette, enormous in the light of my candle, projected on the walls of my cell.
“I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live.”
I am tempted to read the words one more time, but know the weakness of my resolve. My confession is to Christ alone. I don’t even know what words to wrap around my sin. I can only say, “Forgive me, Lord.” For my recklessness. For my pride. I press my hand upon the folded sheet and speak aloud the names of those I love and will never see again in this life. “Laurette. Gagnon. Marcel.” Yes, even Marcel. Then I lift it and touch a corner to the flame. As it is consumed slowly, the paper turning black and curling, I see faces in its light.
Bertrand.
My mother, my aunt.
Denise Gagnon and her infant son.
My queen, my king, les deux dauphins, and the child I’ve yet to meet.
They are not dead. They live, just as I do now. Just as I will tomorrow, and for the eternity to follow. The flame burns closer and closer to my fingers. On any other night, I would drop it, save my flesh. After all, I am la couturière. My hands are my trade, my life. But tonight my life has ended. My hands are useless to my salvation. I delight in the initial, sharp pain. It is exquisite, indulgent. A triumph of my consciousness over instinct. When the last word is consumed, the final corner of paper burned away, the ashes fall to the table. My flesh, however, remains. Intact, with only the promise of a blister. All pain erased.
God of heaven, see me now
Th
e whole world rumbles beneath my feet, or so it seems. In truth I know it is the motion of the tumbril, the turning of the wheels—sluggish, with thick spokes—clearly visible to all the eyes that line the road. It is a short distance, I’m told, but the throng gathered on either side makes the going slow. Their shouts surround us like a newly built wall, each word a brick.
“Liberté!”
“Fraternité!”
“Égalité!”
Within the proclamations, gleeful taunts of death. A cry for blood and damnation for the tyrants. Tyrants like me. It is an amazing, fearful thing to be so shouted down. I have never harmed a soul, never wielded power, never armed myself with anything sharper than a scissors.
There is a jolt, and I stumble forward, my fall stopped by the stranger beside me.
“Merci, Seigneur.” I assume he is worthy of the title.
He responds only with a smile, and I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen anything so gentle and beautiful. Though I am steady on my feet, he keeps hold of my hand. Until his touch, I’d no idea the depth of my fear. I have numbed myself with hunger and clouded my thoughts with a swirling, silent hope for rescue. With the exception of Marcel’s visit, my solitude has been so complete, I’ve nearly forgotten the simple, instant warmth of humanity, and I wish to feel it one more time.
With a boldness that comes from waning time, I ask, “Will you hold my hand, sir? Will you hold it until—?”
“My child, it will be an honor.”
Child. I suppose it is natural that he sees me as such. My brow does not quite reach the breadth of his shoulder, and no doubt the dirt on my face obscures my features. At any other time, I might have taken umbrage, telling him that I am no child. That I’m to turn twenty-two in the coming December. But we both know I will see no such milestone, and I merely thank him again.
’Neath stars and moon and darkest cloud
We roll to a stop, and the wagon’s tailgate is open. The others who ride with me—the ones whose features I’ve taken no pains to notice—are unceremoniously handed down. There is a shout when it is my stranger’s turn.
“Evrémonde!”
I don’t recognize the name, but I’ve been sheltered from much of the nobility. For his part, my stranger shows no eagerness to claim it, as he does not so much as turn his head in their direction. Instead, he keeps a firm grip on my hand, and it is he who lifts me down, leaving the filthy, bloodstained guard to stand listlessly by. My stranger spins me aloft, and for a moment we could be at a dance, my feet waltzing on air. I get only a glimpse of the terrible machine, its blade hoisted high above. When my feet touch the ground, I see only the fine wool of his coat. I tilt my head back to look at his face, all kindness and strength, with the gray blanket of sky behind it.
“Be strong,” he says.
“But for you, dear stranger, I should not be so composed. I am—” Still, here, with the worst of all fates within reach, I am afraid to tell him who I am. What I know and have witnessed. “I am naturally a poor little thing. Faint of heart.” If I were truly faint of heart, I suppose, I would not be living this moment. However, a tiny sprout of fear has sprung to life within me, and I long desperately for some comfort—a final embrace. In the midst of this raging sea, I feel utterly alone. Perhaps I secretly wish for one last bit of mercy, for one of these gory monsters to hear my plea, pull me from the line, and restore me to my innocence.
“I suppose I should raise my thoughts to him who was put to death, that we might have hope and comfort here today,” I say to my stranger. “I think you were sent to me by heaven.”
“Or you to me. Keep your eyes upon me, dear child, and mind no other object.”
Grant me dreams to sleep in peace
As he speaks, the rushing sound of the blade in quick descent ends in a sickening silence, and the crowd erupts in cheers. I hear this faintly, as if on the edge of a disappearing dream, as if I’m already drifting away from this place. But I know to drift away is to drift into the crowd that calls for my blood. I remember the women in the queen’s hall, their anger weapon enough to slay Bertrand. The people of Paris rising together to destroy their country with relentless, murderous rage, brick by brick. They pose a prolonged death, a personal affront to my flesh, and right now the only thing keeping me anchored is this stranger’s grip.
“I mind nothing while I hold your hand, dear sir.” And I grip it tighter. “I shall mind nothing when I let it go, if they are rapid.”
“They will be rapid. Fear not!”
We speak as if this is a quality to be admired, this seamlessness of justice, and not a system that has now given me a life to be measured in minutes. I want to close my eyes and indulge in the luxury of memory, but I can only recall my most recent hours, my own mind protecting itself from those days before I took my first step on the path that brought me to this place.
And with the sunrise in the East
“Brave and generous friend,” I say, tugging him closer, “will you let me ask you one last question? It troubles me—just a little.” I sense that he needs to be a source of strength. After all, these are his final moments too. I think of Bertrand and Gagnon, knowing they would want to leave this world having helped someone.
“Tell me what it is.” He sounds indulgent, welcoming, and details that I’ve guarded with silence until this moment pour forth.
“I have a cousin, an only relative and an orphan, like myself, whom I love very dearly. She lives in a farmer’s house in the south country. Poverty parted us, and she knows nothing of my fate.” I pray that Marcel has reached Mouton Blanc safely, but I cannot know for certain. And even so . . . “How should I tell her! It is better as it is.”
“Yes, yes; better as it is.”
I fear his attention is growing as short as our time together—our time on earth—and I pose to him the question that has plagued me since I first heard the pounding on the door.
“What I have been thinking as we came along, and what I am still thinking now, as I look into your kind, strong face which gives me so much support, is this: If the Republic really does good to the poor, and they come to be less hungry, and in all ways to suffer less, she may live a long time, my cousin.” I think about my elusive birthday. “She may even live to be old.”
“What then, my gentle sister?”
My eyes fill with tears, the first since I fell to the filthy bricks on my cell floor. “Do you think that it will seem long to me, while I wait for her in the better land?”
“It cannot be, my child; there is no time there, and no trouble there.”
Wake me to a glorious day
My mind flies back to such a life. Long, listless days. Sweet grass and laughter. Hard work and deep sleep and no thought of yesterday or the next day or the next. What troubles had I known, other than a little hunger? It has now been days since I have had any taste of food, and in light of what awaits, an empty stomach seems something easily endured.
I tell my stranger that his words bring comfort, and as I do, I sense an emptiness at my back, and I know my time has come.
“Am I to kiss you now?” I ask, for it seems a fitting way to end a life.
He responds, “Yes,” as if we are fulfilling a lifelong promise, and not a notion newly born.
He bends to me, and suddenly his lips are soft on mine. His kiss erases the terror of the days behind me and strengthens me for the steps ahead.
I turn, forced by a viselike grip on my elbow, yanked as if I’ve threatened to flee. The shouts of the crowd are softened briefly as my crimes are read above the din. I don’t recognize my life in the account, but it must be true, for here I am, my face upturned to capture the autumn breeze. Each ascending step brings me closer to the giant machine, but also to some promise of freedom.
“I am the Resurrection and the Life!” The voice of my stranger carries, but I don’t look back. I can’t. Instead, I scan the crowd, a blur of sunburned faces, and I think I see—
“À la mort!”
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—I pray
The sea calls for my death. My blood. In the midst of all those open mouths, those fists raised in the air, there is one familiar face. Gagnon. He is motionless, his expression set with uncomprehending compassion. There’s no time to marvel how he came to be here. I can only hold his gaze, pleading.
Tell her.
Tell Laurette.
Je prie.
Je prie.
Je prie.
My throat is cradled in the blood-soaked wood, my eyes forced down to see nothing but the gore below. I close them, entreating God to show me some beauty, something within this darkness to usher me to the Light.
Show her to me, Sovereign Lord. Before I embrace her in your presence, give me a glimpse of these intervening years.
And my heavenly Father complies. I see my Laurette, at this moment, at Gagnon’s table, each of her hands clasped in that of a strong son. One of them holds the hand of a beautiful little girl with Marcel’s face, and the other the hand of my own little lost prince. Then, in a vision beyond description, I see a new, thriving life nestled in darkness. A tiny boy, and I know he will have his day, whole and healthy and grown, sitting at this table, his brothers long gone to their own. All this is today, this hour, but God reveals tomorrow, too. Gagnon riding past a new grave, dug in ground consecrated only by a family’s legacy. It is where Marcel’s body will rest with the land he so desperately loved. I will never see this friend again, but the others . . .
At the first touch of the steel on my flesh, my final prayer, my final question is answered. How long will it be?
My mother, awash in grace, holds her arms out to catch me. I’m folded in a softness beyond any silk my hands have touched.
I feel my name, Renée, and turn to see Laurette, restored to the beautiful young woman I last saw through the window of a royal carriage. I know she has left generations behind—soon to follow. Bertrand awaits by a fountain. Gagnon stands off in a field. Marie, freed from the shackles of royalty, holds her children. All of us wait together, made glorious in spirit.
The Seamstress Page 38
